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Monday, September 30, 2013

Well, that was interesting. Gingerloft has closed as a Challenge Blog and as a member of the DT team I have just been denied permission to go to the Gingerloft DT blog. Oh well - life happens and I wish Tami all the best for her future.

There seems to be some strange issue with the Lollipop Ladies too, and Gin is not up-to-date with the blog. Guess that is another one that might be folding. Going from busy to half busy in a very quick amount of time!!

Just want wanted to share a quick card I made last week sometime. Saw an idea in a magazine and played with it. The sentiment is computer generated.

Twine and bling come from SU and Annabelle Stamps

The bug was a freebie

Did a bit of pin work around the sentiment

The card is a commercial blank from Regal Press - I spent a lot of money there last week!

Saturday, September 28, 2013

I am sitting here listening to the Grand Final between Freemantle and Hawthorn in the AFL, and it is already almost too much for my nerves. Go Hawkes! So I thought I would blog a bit about Kitty Lane and her newest stamps.

Kitty asked me in late June to make her some more cards, but I was so slack, and so late getting them done - not because they are not super images to work with but because I was just overrun by life. Kitty sent me seven images, and I showed on yesterday of the Halloween Trick or Treat.

Today I will show you Duck and Frogs. Isn't this image so cute! So much fun to colour up as well.

Coloured with Copics and then die cut with a Spellbinders die. The card is XPress Blending card.

Do you see the little cloud. It is a sticker from Collected and Co.

This is a sentiment stamp I have had for a while - Inkadinkado - and it is so useful. It has been stamped with TH Distress ink.

I used some Stickles and then some stick-ons for the rain drops - these stick-ons come from Cloud9 Designs. They just gave it some more dimension.

The yellow card behind is created using distress inks on SU Whisper White, and was done a few weeks ago. The ink was going to waste so I quickly grabbed a few pieces of waste card and coloured them up, so you will see a bit more of this type of background card again. It is mounted onto some SU Pumpkin Pie and wrapped around with a bit of pretty ribbon. The clouds and the circle are on dimensionals to give them height.

It is a commercial blank card under all that, but the DP is a bit of old SU DP.

Monday, September 23, 2013

Gingerloft has a new challenge starting this week and it is for The Great Outdoors:

My card features one of Tami's images from Gingerloft - Wintertree - and I have printed it off onto the XPress blending card, coloured it lightly with Copics, and then added a bit of Stickles to make the snow gleam. I added a die cut from a black scrap of the deer to the front and tied a piece of sheet ribbon across the front. I framed the image in one of the Spellbinder's Frames and cut this from SU Glorious Green.

I used an SU Sizzix die to cut some snowflakes from various papers, and attached a small tag in white to this, after I had stamped it with the sentiment, which comes from Waltzing Mouse. I used TH Distress Ink to do this.

The background DP comes from a Christmas paper stack and I am sorry, I do not have the name of it. This is my second Christmas card for the year. It is on a commercial white blank card.

This is taken in sunshine, and the green looks a bit different. You can see the embossing on the frame and the deer a bit more.

Wednesday, September 18, 2013

is to use up those bits of scrap and old stash - at leastfive bits of Designer Paper- and in my case to clear the decks for the Christmas card rush! I also chose to make my first Christmas card for 2013 - I think I have been very restrained so far, but I have dived in and from now on, there will be lots of Christmas cards to admire and to wonder to yourself - will I get that one? Who will know!

Our Sponsors for this challenge are:

7 Digis of winner's choice

4 digis of Winner's choice.

Meljen also allowed me to use a digi of my choice, so I chose a merry little bird singing his heart out! He is so sweet and is called little bird song.

Yes, he is coloured with Copics and some Stickles and white pen have been added added. I chose to make him a robin. They are such "in your face" little birds, full of vinegar and spit. They always make me smile the way they parade around, while the little dun coloured hen goes about her business without all the fuss.

Another shot of him singing his heart out about Spring (remember, Christmas is in our Summer)! I masked him before colouring and used my Copic spry system to spray the blue sky background in, and then applied blender pen to the water droplets to lighten them up before adding Stickles to them.

This snowflake was created using three different die-cuts added together using three different pieces of scrap card. I really like the middle one which is a Memory Box die cut, and the other two are SU.

The background mount and background DP are left over from last years Christmas efforts, and the red background mount is a piece of 6 x 6 from a Christmas pad I have (one of the many, but it was loose so don't really know which one it belongs to); The blue card is from a 12 x 12 sheet of DP and it is mounted on a piece of red DP from a Bo Bunny pack of 6 x 6. That's five pieces of DP Hilde, PLUS the Merry and the snowflake - I win! The whole is mounted onto a white commercial blank card.

The Merry is a die-cut from SU's new Seasonal Catty (yes, I have them here if you want one). It is cut from a piece of scrap red sparkle paper (12 x 12 sheet from SU).The bird and the mount are also cut using SU dies. The thinlit die with the Merry came out really easy and didn't tear - not sure if it was because that glitter paper is a bit stronger than ordinary DP or not but I was very pleased. I also forgot to back it with some sticky paper before die-cutting, so had to use glue to place it but even that didn't phase the die-cut and it behaved beautifully.

Two more shots with the sun on the image - the Stickles on the snow/water droplets, the leaves and a bit on the twig and the sparkle on the snowflake and the sentiment, as well as the silver stripes on the background papers makes the whole thing really shimmery and pretty. Not too sure if you can see the impact here though.

Remember shadow boxes? I saw one which had been made for one of the challenges I am on a Design Team for (Crafting with Dragonflies), and I thought how wonderful that is, so I CASed it! Instead of using a photo frame, I used a small cardboard postal box. I am using this for a half-way inspiration for UNSTAMPABELLES - another DT I am on, for the current challenge to use up our old stash/scraps! With this DT you cannot use stamps, rubber or digital. Just paper, ink and inspiration! I must say I had great fun creating this.

This box has been used initially to post some goodies to me from one of the on-line shops, and then I used it to post some goodies to my MIL last year. I found it when I was cleaning up her unit earlier this year, so I grabbed it and bought it home.

I undid it and glued the outside with some Prit glue, and stuck down some SU DP that looks like red bricks. Once it was glued down I sanded all the edges and made it look a bit vintage with ink etc. I then had an ideas I would die cut out a rectangle but soon realized this was not going to be big enough so hand-cut out the front square.

Then it was a matter of decorating it. I used a piece of dollar shop 12 x 12 brick paper for inside, and a piece of granite paper for the outside back to cover up all the box and the addresses written on it. These 12 x 12's have been hanging around for a while now to be useful - I'd say about four years! Then I raided all the travel stuff in the travel box (from where I am still supposed to be doing the scrapping of our trip to Europe fivesix seven years ago !) and got some stickers, and rub-ons and stuff.

There are three stickers on the outside of the box as well as the die-cut. I have no idea whose stickers they are - sorry. The die cut is an Alternations (TH) die, and I scribbled a bit of white gel pen on the rhs to indicate a light source. The fence is also an Alterations die, sanded on one side, and the Jalopy is too - that got sanded up a bit as well. All three were cut from scraps of card.

The wooden sign post is from Kaiser (purchased earlier this year in Melbourne) and it has stickers, rub-ons and pen on it - some of the rub-ons are so old they would not properly release so pen had to be used!

The flower spray is relatively new. I got it from one of the on-line stores during a sale - it's from Prima. There are two slightly different ones in the pack but this one suited very well.

Behind the jalopy, on the back wall is a piece cut from a Graphic 45 12 x 12 sheet - A Proper Gentleman. It was put out in 2009, and I think I got it when the vintage craze first started - it has old ads on it and this image. It suited the story I was trying to tell here.

He is very elegant isn't he.

The Vagabond is outside looking in. I have a lovely print of a painting (purchased about 30 years ago in Paris) which has this same theme. I loved it then and I still love it. It's pen and watercolour.

I am not sure what I will do with Vagabond. At the moment - it sits in the shelf and I smile at it when I go past! Hubby reckons I am a bit artistic! I laughed and laughed when he said that, but it was nice of him.

Saturday, September 14, 2013

Hi everyone - Challenge 67 for the Lollipop Ladies is based around a photo of a stack of Smarties:

The twist is to use a die cut or a punch somewhere on your creation.

Now, for some reason we don't get many entries for this Challenge and we need seven of them before any prize to be issued. I don't really understand why we don't get entries, as the challenge photo's are really good and the twists are fun, and the inspiration from my team mates on the DT is out-standing. Why not have a go - or if you know why this one doesn't seem to work, let me know.....' cause I have no idea.

My thoughts of Smarties ran along these lines - the lolly where the dye does not run onto your hand when you grab a handful to eat. Yummy chocolate insides and crunchy sugary outside - do you crunch or do you first suck off the sugar coating and then let the chocolate melt on your tongue? Dye.......splodges of colour......... splodges????? Mmmmmm.........out came the Tim Holtz Distressed Paint bottles, and BANG - three splodges before you know it!

I CASed this of course! Saw it first done in Craft Stamper mag, and had cut it out and kept it for my inspiration book - hurriedly flicked through and found it, and then had to look for a suitable flower. I selected a flower from SU Flower Shop set, and stamped it with TH Distress ink Soot. This takes a long time to dry - be warned - and I marked the card so I had to quickly grad a black pen and doodle in some specks to cover these up!

I used the same sentiment, and hand wrote it as well - my Grandaughter Lily told me the other day that my birthday card for her was "Totally Awesome, Nin"! So, that's me - "Totally flippin' AWESOME" to be exact! The die cut is from Spellbinders - Labels.

I used SU Whisper White and SU Real Red to mount, and faux stitching with a black pen. The base card is a commercial square blank in pearly black. I tried to get in most of the colours of the smarties in the photograph - except for the mauve and orange.

Sunday, September 8, 2013

I have decorated a gift bag for this............a commercially purchased bag (Paper Craft UBL).......with some papers from a free set that came with the magazine Creative Cardmaking - Queen Bee Cardmaking Kit. It arrived at just the right moment to assist me!

So, my bag - I used the Gingerloft digi image called Cowgirl, and coloured it with Copics and with my Prisma Pencils as well - having seen a great tutorial on how to give more depth of colour doing this. This was one of my first goes at the trick - I have done other's since - and I was quite pleased with it. Nowm, afer further experimentation, I look at this and think - should have done this, and that, and added something here.....etc

Anyway, the image is very useful, and combined will with the bee papers:

The sentiment and the bee and flower also come from the bee papers, and the image is mounted on a piece of scrap card - SU Glorious Green

I have been a trifle distracted as hubby has had a trip to hospital on Thursday for day surgery, and then another trip to emergency on Saturday for what has turned out to be an infection as a result of the Thursday surgery. Five hours in emergency - OMG - thank goodness for my Kindle! Hubby is much better now thank goodness, but today was a bit slow for us both and I ended up doing some coaching this afternoon for a Sociology assignment as well, so time was fairly scarce! Friday I had to take my car in to have the passenger side airbag replaced on a recall, and as I had to go to the city, and leave it there for three hours, I took the opportunity to do some personal shopping - and came home with lots of bags of goodies!

Life is always full of twists and turns - I guess as long as it is proceeding, that's all you can ask! Better than the alternative!

Thursday, September 5, 2013

today, our youngest granddaughter is 10 years old! Happy Birthday sweetheart! We cannot believe she has grown up so quickly! Thought I would share the card I made for her birthday - you have to remember, she is very, very blond and fair!

This is a Saturated Canary rubber image - I bought it because it reminded me so much of Lily! I used my Copics to good effect. The cat diecut (Memory Box) is because Lily is one keen fanatic about cats! This is her cat Zap!

The sentiment is from SU and the die cut tree and banner is from Spellbinders. The background papers are from Lets Fly Away paper Stack that came with Quick Cards in 2012. Bling is Kaiser. The red card is SU Poppy Parade and the image was stamped onto X-Press Blending card with Momento Tuxedo Black ink.

Wednesday, September 4, 2013

Hello Peeps: hope this lovely Spring weather is making you all happy and not too sneezy!

This fortnight, the team at Crafting with Dragonflies is asking you to really stretch your crafting jeans genes and make a mini album!

Challenge No: 10 (can you believe that!) - Make a Mini Album

Now, don't panic, it does not need to be a big, full blown album - it could be a paperbag album, an envelope album.....in fact, if you just Google mini albums tutorial you get lots of YouTube and other tutorials to look at for a start.

Our sponsors this fortnight are

and

Eureka Stamps offered me two digi's for my album, and so as I was looking through their stack of images I found firstly a lion with lots of love going on around him, and then another sleek beast laying on his side and being a Leo, a light went off in my head and I thought "I can do something about ME ('cause that's what us lions do, think about ourselves a bit!)!!!"

I do have a few friends who share my birthday space, and so I grudgingly thought I could also spare them a few pages too in my album, and make it about LEO'S! We end up taking photo's at various birthdays but they never see the light of day and sit on the memory stick. I usually take photos, so there are not that many of me and what there is is not really that flattering, and is usually being taken by a grandchild or hubby - he is expert at cutting off heads in photos!

So,

The front cover - images coloured with Copics

Both covers

I am a bit of a magpie, and when I see cheap mini albums at fairs and so on, I have a tendency to bring them home and add them to my stash. So, when Hilde said mini album, I went looking and found this one. I think I have had it for at least five years!! It is pretty much just two covers of chipboard, and some leaves inside of cream paper, and all have been hole punched three times to create a way of joining them. I had some album rings, so used three of them, and just tied ribbon bits to them to match the colours.

I used a 6 x 6 paper stack from my stash to cover the covers, and in-between making this and posting I have cleaned up my working area and re-organised my stash. Now, I don't know where I got the papers from! I have looked through the stash as it is at the moment too and cannot locate it. so much for being more organised!

I glued the papers with a glue stick to the covers, and then sanded off any extra bits around the edges, and for the ring holes. I fussy cut the images and mounted them onto some SU Wild Wasabi card, die cut from various dies. I used the same card to create bushes and branches and grasses; I added a small yellow circle for the sun and a little chipboard bird.

Then I started to think of the inside pages - I didn't have a lot of suitable images, so went to the computer and did an image search for Leo's and collected a few images, printed them off on SU Whisper White and but them from the card.

This is inside the front cover and the first page

This is inside the back cover and the last page - there are only two or three photographs in the album as yet.

Some of the pages through the book

Ditto

Ditto

So, this is my mini album. Where's yours? Make it about your cat, your kid, your house, your car your job, your area, your.....................whatever! Just make it! When you have completed it, enter it at CWD: you have 14 days.....................GO!!!